Not so NORMal Art Show

MSU is full of extremely talented students and staff and does a great job of providing an environment where this talent can be honed and displayed. On Thursday, Aug. 29, there was an art exhibit showing off the work of MSU art student Holden Roberts in Norm Asbjornson Hall.

Roberts was the winner of a special art competition in 2018, where his prize was a commission to create an art project that would be displayed over three large walls in the heart of Norm Asbjornson Hall. Striving to think out of the box, Roberts wanted “to capture and study an exact point and time and place using a combination of static and kinetic materials.” To create his vision, he took videos of sets of static students on campus and painted any student that happened to walk in front of his camera. Accompanying the paintings were two kinetic sculptures. The sculptures were motion activated and ran on a small motor. When viewers walked by, the wheels would rotate, portraying the image that was painted on.

The display took viewers on a journey as they moved from the first to third floor in Norm. The first floor was like a “shrine or a gate a solidified event in time”. The second floor showed a video of four main people standing in a line with ten other people walking by. Roberts painted these four main characters and 10 sub-characters with their “essence and energy in mind. A top color and a bottom color.” The third floor, the end of the journey, portrayed 120 paintings of “beings” that crossed in front of Robert’s camera. As the video progresses, he stopped it and created a “landscape of people”.

It took a total of ten hours to complete the project and you can see Holden Robert’s hard work and passion behind his art. Stop by Norm and take a look at the wonderful and unique display. He is definitely one of the amazingly talented students here at MSU. You can view more of Robert’s art on his website atholdenroberts.com.